Did you look? Those are children who, as likely as not, were running and playing in the months before our government launched a war on the basis of lies. I don't know how those particular children died, but most of the deaths in this war, like all modern wars, are civilian ones, many the result of bombing. This is what "collateral damage" looks like.
Now look at this image.
These are mild images. I'm going very easy on you. This child is alive, but wounded --quite probably wounded psychologically as well. Does the woman holding this child look grateful and liberated? Does she look like she will have an easy time forgiving the people who did this? Why do I write "the people who did this"? Why can't I be honest and write "us"? The United States government launched this war, making us responsible for everything that happens in it.
This image is far more powerful than Edvard Munch's "The Scream."
I don't know what happened, but I know that this is a picture of unbearable rage. I've looked at many images like this one in which, even if I have no way of learning the details, war is presented far more powerfully than could be done in words.
Here's someone with enough years ahead of him to forget and forgive.
But think how hard it will be for him to do so. Then think how easily we will forgive ourselves for not having done more to prevent this war or end it sooner. Who will have the easier time, and should it be that way?
There are stories in our media now about U.S. troops killing civilians -- men, women, and children in cold blood. Sometimes these killings are described as motivated by revenge for Iraqi hostility and ingratitude. But who told our soldiers that the Iraqis would be grateful for being invaded, shock-and-awed, and occupied? Who spread that lie? Not the Iraqis.
And who told our soldiers that it was acceptable to kill the "hadji" (the term they appropriated in a racist way for Iraqis)? Who taught our young men and women to place bags over Iraqi heads?
These people have faces. The bags take away the stories those faces might tell.
To defend the United States, our soldiers have been sent by the Bush administration to "handle" people who never threatened us and who live in a nation that never threatened us by"
pinning them to the ground;
holding guns to their heads;
parading them naked;
leaving them handcuffed in the dirt, creating scenes that concentration camp guards from Nazi Germany would have flinched at far less than the rest of us;
surely the "hadjis" are not human if we can treat them this way, if their limbs can be found lying about in the street like fruit off a tree;
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
